Senator Wolf wants Pilgrim Nuclear Plant shuttered

State Senator Dan Wolf (D-Harwich) spoke in detail on the boiling of water Sunday at the First Parish Meetinghouse in Brewster – and he drew a standing room only crowd.

State Senator Dan Wolf (D-Harwich) spoke in detail on the boiling of water Sunday at the First Parish Meetinghouse in Brewster – and he drew a standing room only crowd.

They weren’t there to learn how to cook an egg as Wolf was enumerating the reason’s he’d like to see the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth shut down. The plant utilizes a General Electric Type-3 boiling water reactor powered by low-enriched uranium dioxide.

“This is really old technology. It’s kind of a strange way to boil water, and the function of the plant is to boil water and create steam and use it to turn the turbines,” Wolf reflected. “Go home and look around your house for a piece of 60-year old technology. The only workable unit in your house that’s 60 years old in some cases is you. We don’t rely on 60-year old technology.”

Pilgrim isn’t 60 years old, it’s 41 having commenced operation in 1972, but it will be 60 when its 20-year license, renewed in 2012, expires in 2032.

“I raised three daughters coming here every Sunday,” Wolf said. “I think about the legacy we could be leaving them, if we don’t do anything: a 60 year-old nuclear power plant with 5,000 spent fuel rods: a nuclear waste dump, on the shores of Massachusetts.”

That’s looking ahead a bit. Currently there are about 3,400 fuel rods stored in a pool, inside the reactor building behind 5–foot thick steel reinforced walls.

“The plant was designed with a storage pool for 880 rods,” Wolf said. “There are now 3200 rods in the pool (when he toured the facility two years ago). I asked why was it designed for only 880? The answer was ‘it’s safe for 3200’. That’s not the question I asked. I wanted to know how they arrived at the limit.”

“The NRC has determined that both pool and dry cask storage of spent fuel are safe,” Pilgrim spokesperson Joyce McMahon replied via email. “Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool is licensed by the NRC to hold 3,859 spent fuel assemblies. We have begun the process to move spent fuel from the pool to dry cask storage. This fall the first three casks will be loaded. Each cask can hold 68 spent fuel assemblies and we expect to load three new casks every 24 months.”

Wolf said parts of the plant reminded him of a 1950’s science fiction film.

“When you walk around the plant it doesn’t look like you’d expect,” he noted recalling his tour. “They’re working with solid state (equipment), vacuum tubes, maybe some of it is up to date but some of it isn’t. They go to the junkyards of other power plants find replacement parts that still function. Then you go up to the top floor over the containment vessel. You step out and stick to the mat. What is that? It’s really a big piece of flypaper. The purpose is after you go around they want to take the radioactive material off the bottom of your shoes.”

“Since it took ownership in 1999, Entergy has invested half a billion dollars in safety-related upgrades and new equipment at Pilgrim,” McMahon noted. “The plant also employs continuous improvement processes that includes rigorous training as well as installing and implementing the newest certified technology available. All of this investment in both human and equipment capital is done to maintain the ongoing safety and reliability of the plant.”

While the Fukishima nuclear facility was hit by an earthquake and tidal wave what led to the meltdown was the disabling of the cooling pumps.

“The only thing that glows in a nuclear power plant is the storage pool, an iridescent blue green, a very inviting color until you think what’s in it,” Wolf pointed out. “The plant is taking in tens of millions of gallons of water a day to cool it and it puts it back out as much as 30 degrees hotter. A bigger vulnerability is what if the cooling water stops flowing? The biggest threat to a nuclear power plant is the loss of electricity.”

He noted the third back-up was a Honda generator sitting on a Kabota tractor in the garage. That generator would power a hose to spray down the plant.

“By the time I was done with the tour I felt this was the theatre of the absurd,” Wolf declared.

“Pilgrim was designed and built with safety as its basis and ongoing improvements and investments further bolster safety at the plant,” explained McMahon. “The layers upon layers of redundant safety systems at Pilgrim are among the many reasons why the safety of Pilgrim remains at a high level. Pilgrim works with the NRC, the worldwide nuclear industry and a host of state and Federal agencies to learn from events and to continuously build upon and improve the safety and security of the plant.”

Wolfe isn’t convinced.

“What we’re experiencing with the re-licensing of that plant is a form of craziness. I can’t imagine a world in which that makes sense,” Wolf marveled. “Five percent of the energy in Massachusetts comes from nuclear plants, 14-percent in New England. I asked ISO New England if we shut down Pilgrim would we have enough electricity, without hesitation the answer was an unqualified yes.”

ISO New England basically manages the grid and electricity markets.

“If we did a good conservation and efficiency program we can reduce our consumption 30-percent. Does it make sense to keep a plant operating that is producing 5 percent when we can reduce consumption?” Wolf asked.

Pilgrim represents five-percent of the (summer) electric capacity, but generates about 14-percent of the state’s power (as of 2010) trailing coal (20-percent) and natural gas (60-percent) according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. ISO New England pegged nuclear’s share of power in New England at 33-percent in 2013.

Pilgrim produces about 600mw at peak. There are three other regional plants; Seabrook in New Hampshire, Vermont Yankee and Millstone in Ct. Vermont Yankee is owned by Entergy, as is Pilgrim, and will be shut down at the end of this year, as it’s no longer economical due to the low price of natural gas.

Entergy bought Pilgrim from Boston Edison in 1999.

“We’ll take a little bit of a risk on that and probably do okay in 12 years and if we can get a 20 year expansion we’ll make a killing,” Wolf said as he speculated on Entergy’s though process. “The story on the nuclear power plant has to do with money and taking about dollars and following that gets us to where we are today and why we have to fight so hard.”

Wolf urged residents to go to meetings and rallies, write elected officials and work for candidates.

“You’ve got to rattle really hard down here to be heard in Boston,” he said.

Margaret Rice-Moir, one of the forum’s organizers, noted all 15 Cape towns had voted favorably on a resolution to shut the plant.

Wolf said there is legislation to tax spent fuel rods in a pool at $5000 apiece vs. $1,000 for those encased in dry (concrete) storage) and also a bill to look at evacuation plans.

“We’re asking the state DEP to take a look at the impact on marine life in Cape Cod Bay. It’s really hitting the issue form all angles,” he declared.

“An environmental impact study (EIS) that included comments from numerous environmental agencies was a significant part of Pilgrim’s 6-year license renewal process,” McMahon said in reply to concerns over marine life in the Bay. “The EIS found the plant and its operations had no significant impact on the environment, including marine life. The possible sighting of a Northern right whale and her calf in the vicinity of Pilgrim last year prompted Pilgrim to take additional action. To provide further assurance, Entergy developed a supplemental monitoring program for Pilgrim that was submitted to the NRC at the end of 2013.”

Wolf believes vox populi should prevail.

“Democracy is the civic expression of our collective will and I look at the aging nuclear power plant on our shores and if you believe that definition of democracy then one certainly can’t look at this as anything other than a failure of the government,” he concluded.